BHNN Guest Podcast – Ep. 169 – Acquiring Stillness of the Mind with JoAnna Hardy

Moving through the senses, JoAnna Hardy guides listeners in a meditation to acquire stillness of the mind.

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“It’s important that we start that way, with this breath-body central focus, to really collect, gather, and sustain the capacity of our mind to be more still. From that stillness, this really beautiful self-trust comes. We can trust ourselves more because we are not at the whimsy of that chaotic mind.” – JoAnna Hardy

In this episode, JoAnna Hardy guides us through:
  • The benefits of having clarity and a still mind
  • The breath-body central focus
  • Gaining self-trust
  • Paying attention to the sounds and sights around us without assigning meaning
  • Working the muscle of awareness
  • Reengaging with the breath when the mind gets busy

“Seeing shapes, colors, shadow, light, noticing if we look at an object very simply as those shapes and colors and shadows and light, it’s very different than immediately having the idea of what they are. Just allowing seeing, just seeing of an object without a decision about it.” – JoAnna Hardy

This recording is from the Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center: Mindfulness for Educators.
About JoAnna Hardy: 

JoAnna Hardy is an insight meditation (Vipassanā) practitioner and teacher; she is on faculty at the University of Southern California, a meditation trainer at Apple Fitness+, a founding member of the Meditation Coalition, a teacher’s council member at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, a visiting retreat teacher at Insight Meditation Society, and a collaborator on many online meditation Apps and programs. Her greatest passion is to teach meditation in communities that are dedicated to seeing the truth of how racism, gender inequality and oppression go hand in hand with the compassionate action teachings in Buddhism and related perspectives to social and racial justice. 

More Be Here Now Network Podcasts:
Lama Rod Owens covers the dharma of freedom, loving ourselves, ancestral work, and the power of meditation: Dedication to Liberation
JoAnna Hardy shares a guided meditation all around the first foundation of mindfulness – mindfulness of the body:  First Foundation Guided Meditation
Through bearing witness, love & service, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee shares how we can collectively heal the crisis of disconnection & ecological devastation: Love & Service
Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh explores how we can joyfully bring mindfulness into everyday activities like phone calls, driving, and walking: The Ojai Foundation Presents: Under the Teaching Tree with Thich Nhat Hanh